broiling hot days, their faces grimy and unshaven, their clothes torn
and spotted, they were still Australians who looked you in the eye with
a sense of having proved their birthright as free men. Sometimes the old
spirit incited by the situation got out of bonds. One night when a
company rose up to the charge the company next in line called out,
"Where are you going?" and on the reply, "We've orders to take that
trench in front," the company that had no orders to advance exclaimed,
"Here, we're going to join in the scrum!" and they did, taking more
trench than the plan required.

The fierce period of the battle was approaching when fighting on the
Ridge was to be a bloody, wrestling series of clinches. Now trenches
could not be dug on that bold, treeless summit. As soon as an aeroplane
spotted a line developing out of the field of shell-craters the guns
filled the trench and then proceeded to pound it into the fashionable
style for farming land on the Ridge.

Trenches out of the question, it became a war among shell-craters. Here
a soldier ensconced himself with rifle and bombs or a machine gunner
deepened the hole with his spade for the gun. This was "scrapping" to
the Australians' taste. It called for individual nerve and daring on
that shell-swept, pestled earth, creeping up to new positions or back
for water and food by night, lying "doggo" by day and waiting for a
counter-attack by the Germans, who were always the losers in this grim,
stealthy advance.

In Mouquet Farm the Germans had dugouts whose elaborateness was realized
only after they were taken. A battalion could find absolute security in
them. Long galleries ran back to entrances in areas safe from shell
fire. Overhead no semblance of farm buildings was left by British and
Australian guns. When I visited the ruins later I could not tell how
many buildings there had been; and Mouquet Farm was not the only strong
point that the Germans had to fall back on, let it be said. In the
underground tunnels and chambers the Germans gathered for their
counter-attacks, which they attempted with something of their old
precision and courage.

This was the opportunity of the machine gunners in shell-craters and the
snipers and the curtain of artillery fire. Sometimes the Australians
allowed the attack to get good headway. They even left gaps in their
lines for the game to enter the net before they began firing; and again,
when a broken German charge sought flight it